A brief of history of Wollaston Beach:

Quincy Shore Reservation was concieved in 1899 by the Metropolitan Parks Commissioners, and remains as the formal/legal name of Wollaston Beach, Caddy Park, and Moswetusset Hummock. The ‘birth’ of Wollaston Beach occurred in 1908 with the completion of the “Metropolitan Boulevard” from Atlantic St to Fenno St.

The “Mount Wollaston River” bridge at Blacks Creek was completed in 1925, and the bridge was dedicated to the memory of Sgt. Philip Greenberg USMC (WWII) in 1961. The Greenberg Bridge was rebuilt in 1974. At that same time, Blacks Creek was dredged, and the order came for it to be dug out to several feet below Low Tide Level so as to ‘alleviate’ flooding upstream at the mouth of Furnace Brook. This order came from a politician and not an engineer, because this action did nothing to stem the flooding and only served to undermine the new approach to the Bridge, until the engineers managed to stop the digging.

Black’s Creek was named for Moses Blacks, a good friend and neighbor of President John Adams and Abigail . (Abigail’s letters spelled his name as ‘Blacks’). He lived in the “Dorothy Q” house on Butler Rd.

Ruffs (or Rufes) Hummock was named for Rufus Davis, essentially banished to live there when his wife died and he took up with too much ‘spirits and loose women’.

Gull Island is now known as Caddy Park, dedicated to the memory of Sgt William Caddy USMC (WWII, posthumously awarded Congressional Medal of Honor).

Pageant Field was named from the celebration of Quincy’s Tercentenary (ter CEN ten ary) in 1925. “Lower Merrymount” was chosen for the site of “The Pageant of Quincy” : 3-hours in length, and truly a cast of thousands of Quincy residents, to depict ‘The 300 Years of Quincy’. All of the several performances held during the week long celebration were a huge success. The concept could have led directly to the notion of the HBO mini-series, but once ‘talking pictures’ took hold, the “Grand Pageant” was no more. But the name “Pageant Field” stays on. The scene depicted on the official Seal of the City of Quincy is essentially the view from Pageant Field.